Dallas Stars Blog

Grading the off-season moves: Depth forwards

There has been some criticism of the things Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk either has or hasn’t done this summer, so I thought we should just take a look back and study some of the decisions he and the front office have made in a segment we’ll call “Grading the off-season moves.”

Today, let’s look at how they have handled the depth forwards.

Probably the area of most movement for Nieuwendyk and Co., this also is probably the area of most controversy. Dating back to last February, when he signed Steve Ott to a four-year contract extension for $11.8 million rather than move him at the trade deadline, Nieuwendyk has put a heavy emphasis on grit and veteran leadership _ and that could be a bit risky when you consider this team is on a very tight budget.

Ott by himself is a controversial decision. Clearly a leader on the Stars and clearly one of the best agitators in the league, Ott held firm to high contract demands knowing he could get that money in the summer as a free agent. And while a team with a high budget seeking a tough winger who can score goals might be able to afford the luxury of a player like Ott, there is real debate as to whether the Stars can afford him.

Ott will start in the 2010-11 season at a reasonable $2.1 million, but then he will go up to $3.3 million in 2011-12 and finish out with two years at $3.2 million per. That’s heady stuff for a guy who might not have a spot among the top six forwards. Ott certainly can play in the top six _ and actually plays better when he’s paired with a guy like Mike Ribeiro or Brad Richards _ but the Stars have too many other candidates to take those minutes. If Loui Eriksson has six years left at $4.26 million and Brenden Morrow three more years at $4.1 million, and James Neal and Jamie Benn are climbing the ladder quickly and Scott Glennie will need a place to play soon, then where does Ott fit in?

Right now, he seems to be a third line left wing who will help Tom Wandell check the other team’s best players, and that’s a lot to pay a third line left wing.

But most fans love Ott and most insiders feel his edginess is needed, so most people will say this is a deal the Stars can live with. The problem is that Nieuwendyk and his crew didn’t stop there. They then gave raises to Krys Barch and Toby Petersen and signed Adam Burish as a free agent.

Petersen is a versatile player who fills a Stu Barnes-like role on the team, so many weren’t surprised when he signed a two-year extension that averaged $775,000. That’s a fair price for a guy who can play on any line and has the ability to chip in 10 goals. And, at age 31, Petersen deserves the raise up from the $550,000 he was making. Hard-line negotiators might ask if he would have re-signed at the old rate (and I think he would have), but the team might simply have been rewarding a good soldier here.

That then led to the Krys Barch re-signing. Again, Barch is a solid player who has done a lot as far as leadership goes, but did he need a raise from $575,000 to a two year deal at an average of $837,500? The Stars have two viable fighters within the organization in Francis Wathier and Luke Gazdic, so you would have thought that they not only could have filled in for Barch with a cheaper player, but they could have opened the door for the development of the 21-year-old Gazdic, who appears to have a future as a heavyweight enforcer.

Barch likely would have studied free agency and easily could have left, but you wonder if the Stars shouldn’t have offered a one-year deal at a lower price, knowing that Gazdic should be knocking on the door as early as this season and certainly next.

Nieuwendyk then followed those signings with the free agent signing of Burish to a two-year deal at an average of $1.15 million ($1 million this season and $1.3 million next). Burish is just 27 and is coming off winning the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks. He captained the University of Wisconsin to the 2006 NCAA Championship, and Nieuwendyk has a history of scouting college players, so he’s pretty sure that he has a good project here. The Stars feel that Burish, who has just 11 goals in 169 NHL games, will take off when given a bigger role in Dallas. He is a right-handed right wing, so he could play on the checking line with Ott and Wandell or he could move up to the second line and play beside Morrow and Mike Ribeiro. Either way, he will get more minutes than he did in Chicago.

By himself, Burish seems like a good add, but you do wonder if Nieuwendyk is overdoing this grit thing. The Stars made a huge mistake when they signed Sean Avery two years ago, as the combination of Ott and Avery led to far too many shenanigans during games, and the duo became a distraction to the Stars rather than to opponents. Burish seems more mature than Avery, and Ott is a couple of years older, so that should help matters, but you just wonder if Burish is redundant on this team.

Separately, the moves make a certain amount of sense _ Ott is a leader who the team needed, Barch is probably a better fit right now than Wathier or Gazdic, Petersen is a guy you like to have around, Burish could have impressive upside that’s worth the risk. But you combine the moves and the Stars have now committed a significant amount of money to their role playing forwards. A team that is on a very tight budget will pay $2.05 million more than last season just to bring back Ott, Barch and Petersen and add Burish. In 2011-12, that number will be $3.625 million more than it was last season just to keep three role players and add one gritty forward.

Now, if the Stars were spending to the cap, that money might not seem that big of a deal. But they’re not, and there’s no telling if the new owner will (whenever he finally gets here).

Plus, what do you do with players like Glennie or Gazdic or Tomas Vincour or Colton Sceviour or Aaron Gagnon or Ray Sawada? All but Glennie will play in the AHL this year, and maybe they need the seasoning, but the Stars appear to be filling their bottom six for the next two seasons. Couldn’t that stunt the growth opportunity of some of the younger players? With the expectations seemingly low because of the budget Isn’t now the time to see if Gagnon could fill Petersen’s role or if Gazdic could fill Barch’s? Isn’t now the time to see if the kids can help out in the future.

There’s a chance that by allowing Brian Sutherby, Fabian Brunnstrom or Brandon Segal to walk at the end of the season, the Stars will still have wiggle room for some of their young role playing forwards in 2011-12, but Nieuwendyk seems to be making a clear statement with his depth forwards that he believes this team can win right now and that it needs to attack the season in that manner.

That strategy is one that will definitely be open for debate as the season moves on, and I think a lot of people would have rather seen the Stars go full out with a youth movement this year.